Monster Champion Feedback

[Blastyswa]

Here you go. Me in Elite Butchers staring down a Champ Shaman while he casts under 40 hp lighting bolts.



Others were in group as I needed an opener and one stepped in just to help heal me as I stood and took attacks.

If there is really some 800+ damage going on, lets identify and bug report it, etc. But lets not all jump on the bandwagon because one person says its true it must be. I did my testing, you do yours.

I personally haven't been seeing a lot of problems with caster champions myself. Aside from occasionally the stars aligning for them and being forced to run in circles jumping with a lootgen mace to bypass DR avoiding randomized buffs that give more than 40 hp lightning bolts, they are fairly easy to handle in heroics. Main issues I've seen is spawn rate, and the buffing of melee toons. When a caster throws out a lightning bolt once every 4-5 seconds, that gives you time to heal. Having enemies like kobolds that can already hit fairly quickly all of a sudden have DR that makes pointless or reduced your main damage, doubled or more health at low levels, extra damage+extra damage weapon effect, and potentially fort bypass/true seeing can be very painful; especially when it's five kobolds at once.

I've had less problems in groups than solo by far with these effects, but still a lot of problems. The main issue with this change that I have in that regard is that increasing the difficulty in this way (i.e. easier to have random/low control deaths) forces people to group for most questing; which would be completely fine were this WoW. The player base in Dungeons and Dragons just isn't high enough to support group play at all levels for the content that you need though, due primarily to prior changes driving away players, therefore the actual effect of this system will be for anyone that doesn't want TR time doubled or more and resources consumed much faster to go find another game.

Ran a level 3 alt with 11 heroic past lives through some harbor quests. Was by no means a gimp toon, and had about 20 PRR at that level. Multiple times wiped because I'd run into an enemy that was reducing my damage to the point of almost not being able to damage, taking several moderate damage attacks, and then taking an extra damage critical attack with force/neg procs for 60+10 damage. In higher heroic and epic levels, this problem is staying the same because of fort being negated in many situations by champion buffs combined with passive monster fort bypass. Took hits in many EE quests for 700-1400 damage on my 30+ life main character in epics with 190% fort and 140 PRR from enemies that either score a 3x-4x critical, or score an extra damage hit that bypasses PRR.

Also, just think you might want to question the logic of testing some of the highest damage numbers people have been seeing with the lowest content.

[bohemian3]

So far as on Heroics there's been a few close calls, but manageable.

1) All good games need something to keep us on your toes. Champions is a good concept, the implementation needs tweaking,
especially on damage dealt.

2) A random mob monster should NOT be tougher than an end boss.

3) Increasing Difficulty without tangible rewards demotivates players. The current occasional chest drops are useless.

How I'd change things if I ran DDO:

I'd add a new setting in GAME OPTIONS called "Champions" with the slider UI used under the Audio UI settings. Champion spawn rate: 0% to 100%. Default 10%. Right now it 'feels' like 20-25% but I don't have hard data for that.

Masochists - set it to 100% and knock yourselves out. For those who hate, it 0%. Also gives you some options when you solo on TR lives that are a little squishier or a class you've never played to experiment with.

The challenge spawn rate of the leader of the group is the one that is used for groups. Let people know in your LFM you're a "C50" group if your leading and having your spawn rate set at 50% over 10% the agreed upon norm.

But challenge and motivate us as players to use it with something we can use. Drops that are daily dice type drops! OR better yet.

XP Bonus:
Kill 10+ Champions 5%
Kill 20+ Champions 10%
Kill 40+ Champions 30%

That would motivate all of us to push our limits.

Most of us appreciate the hard work the devs put into the game. Thank you for your work on this. They are in a tough (and often times, lose-lose) situation to find the balance to make the game challenging and fun for the relative newbies as well as the seasoned pro.

Will be interesting to see how to plays out

[Blastyswa]

So I just went through the first 10 pages or so and took a quick count.

about 54 for champions

about 36 against champions.

My count is most likely inaccurate. I did notice a trend though. most posters were from the join dates of 2009/2010 about 45, and most of those were for.

I am for and I joined in that time, am I for because the game had a very nice balance then and this brings back good memories? I don't know.

I also noticed that a good amount of the players from the 2013 to 2014 era are against. Is this because they never saw the game at its height, again I don't know.

These are just some things i noticed when I pseudo tallied up the yay's and nay's. there were tons of ones I wasn't sure which side they were on, and most people seemed to be in the middle.

As far as the people with join dates of 2006-2007 they seemed pretty evenly split.

Pretty certain join date means date that you signed up for forums. Just based on the fact that I've been playing since 2008, and I'm fairly certain it shows my join date as 2013 (I wish I'd done this much TRing in only 2 years). So, if this is the case and mine individually isn't screwed up, then your entire post is invalid.

[Uska]

So you want to make soloing impossible?

I would like to see it extremely difficult to do without other real players but not impossible

[Revolted]

I like the idea of the champs, and it gave a so much needed boost on the difficulty of the game.
My only problems are some numbers. 1st of all, it should be a rare mob, that should spawn anywhere in the quest for laughs and imprevisibility, the intended 10% is hardly rare. I could imagine a dozen total champs on a quest, more than that seems like it's a mob as rare as any other. 2nd, I didn't make the calculations, but as for now, every quest i entered, for each group of 10 mobs I got 3-4 champs, so it isn't just not a rare mob, but it seems even more common (I mean do this mobs need more champs than casters? It seems that the guy that atributed them that status just wanted its land to have a huge number of champs, to show off to their rivals statistic-wise.) 3rd, as refered above, those one-hit dead are no fun at all, it's just plain stupid that a high hp, well equiped toon could die that easily against a mob.

[TechknowCat]

So I just went through the first 10 pages or so and took a quick count.

about 54 for champions

about 36 against champions.

My count is most likely inaccurate. I did notice a trend though. most posters were from the join dates of 2009/2010 about 45, and most of those were for.

I am for and I joined in that time, am I for because the game had a very nice balance then and this brings back good memories? I don't know.

I also noticed that a good amount of the players from the 2013 to 2014 era are against. Is this because they never saw the game at its height, again I don't know.

These are just some things i noticed when I pseudo tallied up the yay's and nay's. there were tons of ones I wasn't sure which side they were on, and most people seemed to be in the middle.

As far as the people with join dates of 2006-2007 they seemed pretty evenly split.

Join dates on the forums don't mean squat. I joined in 2008, but did not mess with my forum account since they changed the forums the last time.
Still I am not against them, I just think they need some tweaking

[Neomarica]

Having ran some quests yesterday on my level 10 fighter(a melee character, no less!), I might as well add my two cents. I ran Tear of Dhakaan, Von1-2 and two of the necro II quests as well as Haunted Library. I soloed most of them, used a cleric hire on the necropolis quests(I needed the help, since I only just bought the bundle) I did NOT come across any champions doing ridiculous amounts of damage. The champions did hit harder than normal mobs, but I wasn't having too much trouble with them. They obviously need to be finetuned(especially if there really are so many of them capable of one-shotting level appropriate characters as people are claiming - but I haven't seen any evidence of that yet) and the spawn rates seem to be higher than the supposed 10%. But overall I like them.

[Tokeri]

wow this thread is getting long took me a good while to catch up.

i have played my first life cleric to near cap now in heroic elite (with mostly lootgen items and things ive picked up on the way and no tomes) and the champs havent been much of an issue honestly been running between 3-6 man groups the only real issue we had was in Running with the devils as some of you guys have pointed out some mobs might needs to be tweaked or excluded from being champions those clerics in there is tough as nails and hit like trucks i think these guys might need some dev alone time

but other then that i dont find champions an issue at all it just takes a bit more time to deal with them, im having a blast seeing diffrent creatures as champs like a champ giant rat that almost killed our pally we laughed so hard. and as many have said some indication to be shown on champs to see what type of buffs they have without having to inspect would be a really cool feature.

i see no reason why a new player wont be able to play heroic elites, CC and a balanced team will still win, cleric blinds turns melee champs into nothing but punching bags and casters can reliably be tripped by a well placed comet fall except in some cases. other classes with any form of cc works great aswell as webs sticks them in place or trips and stuns keeps them in place just like any other mob

all thumbs up from me so far i just enjoy playing ddo more now proper focus and agro management and CC is a part of the game again not just dps and speed

[EllisDee37]

Really the only ones I have read (and yes I have not read them all )

No you haven't. Skipped right past my enthusiastic support based on my melee fighter's experience, for example.

You were getting champions on Normal?? That directly contradicts Release Notes.

There's been so much exaggeration and hyperbole on the "anti-champion" side that I've stopped believing the claims.

"850 damage lightning bolt in waterworks!!!!"
"My testing showed ww champion lightning bolts hitting for ~40."
Who to believe, who to believe...

"Went back in on normal and the champions were insane!!!"
Uh-huh. Sure.

[Revolted]

Also forgot to add a couple things I got on my mind:

1- They should never be stronger than a red or orange name, but orange names should have a small chance to be champs, as if they're not only named but also even stronger than their peers;

2- They should have an unique flavor, not only from the buffs they got, but also should have some random ability from ed. Like, if they're casters they should have a random tier 5 (tunned down, as we don't have the same kind of hp they have) from draconic, magister or even shiradi, if they're melees they should have from LD, Fury, DC, etc, and so on. That would give them a champion flavour, something unique that wouldm ake them not just a pure killing machine, but also show us that they're indeed champions of their kind!

So this is my opinion, I really like the idea of bringing the chance of failing or dieing on EE up, but with flavour and not only buffed up mobs that can kill you one shot without reason for that!

[LupusVai]

The yes or no checkbox seems perfect.

However, you can guarantee that most of the "the games too easy for me braggarts" who are for the champion changes as it is currently implemented, will mostly be clicking the no champions box too.

[EllisDee37]

The yes or no checkbox seems perfect.

However, you can guarantee that most of the "the games too easy for me braggarts" who are for the champion changes as it is currently implemented, will mostly be clicking the no champions box too.

An opt-out checkbox is a terrible idea. May as well just remove champions, because nobody in their right mind would choose to have them if it were optional.

Not because they are unreasonable. Simply because it would be silly. Just like you CAN run around naked with no gear, nobody actually does because it would be silly. Choosing the "include champions" checkbox is functionally equivalent to taking off your gear.

[Albinosaurus]

The yes or no checkbox seems perfect.

However, you can guarantee that most of the "the games too easy for me braggarts" who are for the champion changes as it is currently implemented, will mostly be clicking the no champions box too.

And that would be the direct result of my primary complaint against them: They take more time/resources and give nothing tangible to the player. "Challenge" isn't enough when everyone in the game is concerned with "efficiency." This is doubly true for 2nd life, and triple true for 3rd life and on.

The three best things they could do if they want to keep champs in the game:

1) Make them optional.

2) Add substantial rewards for defeating them. Exp and loot are the best ways, but other things may be acceptable.

3) Tone down the spawn rate and adjust the high end damage they can do.

[Blackheartox]

I will just add the following to this thread.

Two days ago, at this very time, there were 24 LFMs for various quests.

Right now, there are 4.

One of which is for Korthos and is, as far as I can tell, a first-life brand-newbie. Seems pretty bleak for that person to walk into, dunnit?

10 at cannith at this point of time,
same as always.
Before update and after update when things calm down.

It is very common that during time of release of a new update most players come back for few hours to check stuff out and then go again into their hibernation.
You cannot use that as point of relevance for player base growing or dropping.
Also there is timezones, weekends, special occasion days etc etc.

Also, i wil agree what people say that champions should not spawn in lowbie heroic levels like korthos etc, to not drive super new players away.

[Ayseifn]

Did EE Stormhorns, first Eveningstar chain, 3BC chain and some other random EEs in a PUG instead of solo this time and they really weren't that bad. Sure there were deaths but mostly they were speed bumps like normal monsters with the occasional killer, zerg too far solo and you run the risk of a quick death.

Still haven't seen any 1k+ hits or the like but that fortification bypass comboed with true seeing is really nasty, luckily bypass seems to be pretty rare and if you're paying attention you can avoid insta kills for the most part. That said I have 170+ PRR, 100 MRR, 1k+ HP and decentish saves so your mileage may vary.

The yes or no checkbox seems perfect.

However, you can guarantee that most of the "the games too easy for me braggarts" who are for the champion changes as it is currently implemented, will mostly be clicking the no champions box too.

If there's no reward then why would I bother?
If there's a decent reward then would the complainers ask for champs to be removed again?

Balance isn't easy with such a varied player base but I think Overvaan is onto the right idea, get rid of bravery. Bravery is anti new player, anti grouping(10% pen for a death and scaling) and honestly I don't find it that fun trying to keep streak. If bravery does go then we'll probably need some more incentive to do elites, higher loot drops would be a start but I haven't really tested those changes much, maybe just lowering normal drops like they did with the new raids is the way to go.

Buffing sagas is another option but that's just more rail roading I'd like to see go away and having champs grant xp is just too abusable. Any other ideas? I'm asking honestly as I can't think of a good balance for people struggling with champs that wont just make them a non factor for me or a severe hindrance to others.

[CaptainSpacePony]

The exact chances to have True Seeing and Deathward are, of course, subject to change.

I recommend reducing the chance for deathward on undead champions because... really, deathwarded zombies...

This sounds like confirmation that the current percentage is probably working correctly. If you felt there were 40 out of 400 normal monsters (plus extra for the higher chance for orange named minibosses), that's precisely 10%, which is only slightly higher than the intended amount.

Minibosses seem to be much higher, based on my experience so far, I'd estimate miniboss percentage to be roughly 100%.

We don't expect brand new players to be playing Heroic Elite most of the time.

If by "brand new" you mean "players that don't yet know about the social panel" then ok. Otherwise I'm sorry, but the introduction of bravery bonuses and streaking have virtually made all Heroic LFM postings Elite. Unintended consequences and all... (This is one of the biggest reasons there are cries to revoke bravery bonus and streaks as they constrain PUGging.)

[DarthCaedus]

If there's no reward then why would I bother?
If there's a decent reward then would the complainers ask for champs to be removed again?

Because if they don't do this they are going to lose many players very quickly - they've already lost some for certain.

The extra reward is the chests that come from champions. They should include a chance @ tome drops in those based on level. EE level 28 should offer +5 to 6 tome upgrades.

I don't ask for them to be removed I ask for them to be optional because I will not play a game where I get one-shotted - it's a complete waste of my time.

If someone is forced to run on Normal they should choose Neverwinter over DDO because the disadvantages of being a DDO player that has to run on normal is too great.

[lyrecono]

So I just went through the first 10 pages or so and took a quick count.

about 54 for champions

about 36 against champions.

My count is most likely inaccurate. I did notice a trend though. most posters were from the join dates of 2009/2010 about 45, and most of those were for.

I am for and I joined in that time, am I for because the game had a very nice balance then and this brings back good memories? I don't know.

I also noticed that a good amount of the players from the 2013 to 2014 era are against. Is this because they never saw the game at its height, again I don't know.

These are just some things i noticed when I pseudo tallied up the yay's and nay's. there were tons of ones I wasn't sure which side they were on, and most people seemed to be in the middle.

As far as the people with join dates of 2006-2007 they seemed pretty evenly split.

my join date doesn't say a thing, many peoples join date were reset due to a forum foul up, i don't know at what date i joined, the game was already running for a few monts, i remember farming Stormcleave_Outpost, for the slim chance of getting a +5 adam greatsword, blackguards gave us a lot of trouble in what was back then the only raid, tempest spine.

Ive run some elites, and havent gotten one-shot by anything yet. IF the people who claim legendary damage are telling the truth, it may be that something is leaking over from the epics. On elite elite (or hard) the champions are more dangerous than the rest, but not overpoweringly so. Oh, there was a dog in LoD HE that seemed to have rather insane hitpoints (had to stun it 10 times before i managed to get it to 0), but otherwise i havent had much trouble with them.

And as for melees being non-viable now that the champions have arrived, they are just as easy to trip/stun/whatever as the rest.

hmm... the fact that i stun the champions as soon as i see them MIGHT have somethign to do with them not being able to one-shot me, but then the problem is solved anyways, isnt it.

And while there can be a lot of them at times, usually its not an unmanageable number

Assuming the melee can get into range before being one shotted, especialy in crowded rooms with high spawnrate
yesterday i did 56 lowbie quests on elite with a full party of tr vets, 32 cases of one shots are not a fluke, nor ar 2k hp mobs.

In the 1st week of March 2006 I started playing this game.
It was my first ever MMO.
I am not uber. I am a altaholic (have 26 alts.) My strongest character only has 4 lives.
I remember the game as it was. Balanced groups or tactics won the day. not steamroller zerging.
The challenge and possibility of failure is a return to the games roots.
On Khyber I will be be hosting either hard or normal runs again to assist anyone that will want to group with me.
I have rogues and healers parked at various levels to complete holes in a party if required.
I welcome the new champion's with open arms.

awesome vid XD, though i'm sad to admit that i see less and less players online in my timezone&lv range, the party up mechanic is slowly degrading, with the champion mechanics, it's more beneficial to solo elite due to level scalling

Here you go. Me in Elite Butchers staring down a Champ Shaman while he casts under 40 hp lighting bolts.




Others were in group as I needed an opener and one stepped in just to help heal me as I stood and took attacks.

If there is really some 800+ damage going on, lets identify and bug report it, etc. But lets not all jump on the bandwagon because one person says its true it must be. I did my testing, you do yours.

Have you considered that he ones getting the insane damages may be exaggerating? I for one have not seen any insane damages, just highish ones.

thank you for the strawmen argument, the 850 ish electric damage was reported in a full party, not a 2 man (only 2 people are in) second, he doesn't have the buff for spells
the damage was done in the ww though, the 1200 damage was from butchers path (optional boss that turned into a champion), noone at that lv can tank that
You forgot to account for level scaling

[DarthCaedus]

This sounds like confirmation that the current percentage is probably working correctly.

Re-read his message you didn't read it correctly. He is saying the percentage is way higher than 10% which anyone that ran the quest on live would agree with.

We don't expect brand new players to be playing Heroic Elite most of the time.

When I first started playing I ran a few quests on normal. Then tried hard and quickly ran a quest on elite. I was soon running almost everything on elite and this was before bravery bonus, tomes of xp, etc.. Most new players are running elite within a few weeks and always have been. Getting one-shotted at low levels will change that.

Past lifes were intended to be an optional grind and not a mandate to run elite. Now you are saying because someone is new they shouldn't be running on elite. When people acquired their 3 barbarian and 9 primal past lifes what difficulty do you think they were running on? Elite of course and now after 60 lifes it's too easy for them. But they never had to deal with difficulty of harbor quests being scaled up like this when they were new players. And they would have been one-shotted and complained at that time also.

A new player really shouldn't play this game if they can't run on elite - compared to years ago the rewards are much better on elite and xp is much better on elite running a streak. A 2 year learning curve doesn't really make sense for this game any more. A new player definitely shouldn't bother with VIP if they aren't expected to be running elite because that is the initial compelling reason why a new player would choose VIP over FTP - to open on Elite.

Make champions optional with a checkbox - chests are the rewards - and make sure you can get tome drops in those. Otherwise stop the one-shotting outside of raids.

The game as it currently is sucks bad for most players and most won't come to the forums and complain for obvious reasons after reading the forums. There is a post about in-game surveys in the general discussion area - you should really consider that for good feedback and you should also line it up with spending patterns to weed out votes with mules that never spent a penny on the game.

[darthhento]

I'll just leave this here.. a harbor quest on heroic elite